Architectural historian Peter Moruzzi, author of Havana Before Castro, explains what the hotel meant to Cuba’s then ruler: “Batista considered the Habana Hilton among his proudest achievements, its huge blue-lit rooftop ‘Hilton’ name announcing to the world that the eminent Conrad Hilton had confidence in Cuba’s future – that the country was a safe place in which to invest – and that tourists could now find in Havana the modern comforts they expected in a top international resort.”
Batista could not take comfort in the Hilton for long, however. With the revolution making rapid advances, he fled Cuba in the early hours of 1 January 1959, while some of his associates welcomed in the new year in the Hilton ballroom. The revolutionaries entered Havana in a jubilant motorcade on 8 January, and Castro made for the Hilton. According to Moruzzi, “The Hilton was located at the highest point in Havana and visible throughout the city; it was the most prominent symbol of American influence in Cuba. That’s why Castro made it his provisional headquarters when he took Havana in January 1959.”
Photographs from the time show scruffy soldiers lounging with guns in a plush lobby, sitting on the floor eating, machetes still attached to their belts. Castro set up the new regime’s command post in room 2324 of the hotel: the Continental Suite. Press conferences and announcements were held here, as were meetings with visiting leaders from other countries.
The Habana Hilton was taken over by the state and renamed in 1960. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbist
It was also in the lobby of the Hilton that Castro told a gathered crowd: “If the Americans don’t like what is happening in Cuba, they can land the marines, and then there will be 200,000 gringos dead.” With two floors of the hotel given to the incipient Soviet embassy, changing allegiances were evident. In 1960, the hotel was taken over by the state and its name changed to Habana Libre.
Architecture in Havana changed after the revolution. The multi-centred city was – and still is – a museum of sorts for every European style of building seen in the last few centuries, many with local interpretations. The new regime’s attempt at revolutionary architecture came with Castro commissioning a set of national art schools. Two out of five, designed by the architect Ricardo Porro, were completed. These were exuberant, expressive, curvy brick structures, soon criticised for being expensive and idiosyncratic. But they were true products of the revolution for another reason – their design, using brick arches, was directly influenced by the US embargo that caused a shortage of steel.
Foyer of the Habana Libre in 2014. Photograph: Villorejo/Alamy
From the 1960s, Soviet influence is held to have steered post-revolutionary Cuban architecture towards more plain and functional designs – whereas the pre-revolution 1950s had witnessed the construction of several tall buildings in Havana including the FOCSA building, still the tallest in Cuba. The last of those buildings, opened months before the revolution, was the Habana Hilton.
The Habana Libre continues to function as one of the city’s leading hotels. In 1996 its management was shared by the Cuban government with the Spanish Sol Meliá group and the hotel was subsequently restored, the highlight being the re-emergence of an enormous ceramic mural by Cuban avant-garde painter Amelia Peláez.
Up until 1959, Cuba’s legislature had assembled in El Capitolio – a replica of the US Capitol building built in 1929. Castro’s regime shifted it from this too-obvious reminder of the past – but it is perhaps a sign of time elapsed that, as US-Cuba relations ease, the National Assembly is due to meet in a restored Capitolio this year for the first time since the revolution. Meanwhile, in February this year, Paris Hilton visited Havana and the hotel her great-grandfather Conrad inaugurated in 1958. From the selfie she took with Fidel Castro’s son, it would appear all is forgiven.
